Growing Industry

Ng's Infant Tea

If figures quoted recently when the plan was announced to erect a tea factory at Garaina, New Guinea, are correct it would take 6,000 acres of planted tea and 10,000 natives to give the Territory a £1,500,000 tea industry.

A present rate of consumption that would give Australia about one-tenth of her requirements (tea to the value of £14,017,000 was imported in the 11 months ending May, 1959; about half of it comes from Ceylon). However, if grow ing tea in the Territory on that scale is going to tie up 10,000 natives—about one sixth of the present work force—it is obvious that P-NG would be better off without a tea industry. It has always been understood that when and if a tea industry developed there, it would have to be a mechanised one. which requires special cultivation methods in the plan tations.

New Guinea’s tea industry is in its early experimental stage. Some planters grow a little for local use but, as might be imagined, it is not as good as Ceylon tea The new Garaina factory—which will cost something like £27,000 —will turn out tea valued at about £16,000 per annum and will probably be sold locally as ration tea It would, at any rate, be just a drop in Australia’s tea-pot.